PC Do you build a base or transform a POI?

Sjustus548

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Which is your preferred method of base construction?  Are you someone who goes out and finds a great area and builds your own base or do you find a nice POI and transform it to your needs?  I'm not talking about horde night setups, just your base where you live and store all your stuff.  I used to be the kind of player that would build my own base but in the past few alpha builds I've started just taking over an already built POI.  This world I started with the goal to go back to building my own base again.  While we were clearing out our first town for supplies I just threw some storage boxes on top of a house beside the trader so as not to get too settled in.  Little did I know that was enough for me to keep putting off building my base.  Now I'm on day 28, 2hr days, and realized that I hadn't started on my house yet.  So I'm going to change that and I spent the past few hours picking out a great location.  I'm going to build an ocean front house and it's going to be magnificent, or at least I hope it will lol.  Seeing some of the amazing POIs the game has now has inspired me to work harder on making my place look better than a wooden cube that it used to be lol.  

 
Started anew in 20.1..

While we were clearing out our first town for supplies I just threw some storage boxes on top of a house beside the trader so as not to get too settled in.
Yup. First quest cafe had a straight up usable flat roof.

that was enough for me to keep putting off building my base.
Yup

On day 4 I did happen to wonder how bad the screamer hordes are, so I built a little farm setup on the dead-end road next to that roof. Farming went fine.

=> Hmm, so ... now I actually have a horde base.

Likelyhood of me bothering to move on..? Rapidly approaching zero :)

Maybe toss some walls around the cafe roof at some point ...

 
 I'd say I have played in roughly 40 Random Generated Worlds,  and when I first started playing 7D2D I built bases in the Navezgane maps,  possibly 6-7 Different "world generations"

In all that game play I have only built a base from "scratch"  using an empty space of land,   a total of 4 times.    Mostly I look for something with "good bones"  or an interesting location;  then work on setting it up to suit My tastes.  I do often build a "battle block"  in an open area near to My base,  and wreak havoc on the zombies from there during Horde Night.  I seem to always pick something that at least has some kind of a fence,  to get that protection for the first Horde Night,  possibly the second as well,  but By Day 20 I make it a priority to decide what building I am going to use as a long term base/home and start building it up.   I've used 4 different variations of a Pass N Gas station as My bases before,  3 times used a Hotel.  used the big prison once, used the classic Police HQ two times,  Fire Station three times, and the rest were from taking a good looking residential home and walling it in and setting up defenses,   then working on a Battle Block nearby,  usually across the street.  Battle Block is usually 8 x 8 blocks wide and across,  6 blocks tall, catwalk around the upper section.  Small enough that I can cover all sides easily and no decor or storage,  just a place to fight zombies from on Horde Night.  Still close enough to My base in case something truly unexpected happens and I have to retreat and regroup.

 
During a19 we fortified a school, placed living quarters at 2nd floor, made school walls 3 thick, extented the main entrance with outer walls to make zombies pathfind a long straight line through my minefield. And at last, I put turrets at the class rooms, making sure that school was lit up with gunfire. 

 
It depends a lot and A20 changed that. With the addition of the block rewards that gives a lot more freedom to build from scratch. I used to predominantly use an existing POI and I still do early game. Late game I tend to get a tier 5 completion  from the safer area I'm working from, desert or forest, just for the block reward. Then I move to wastelands and construct a base near a trader there.

 
Largely depends on my spawn location and if playing with a group.  If solo, I'll usually just take a POI and convert/reinforce it.   If I do make a custom base, it's usually mostly for the XP, as I'm not a very creative builder.  My personal bases are very blocky (cubes) with a large platform for farming/gyro landing platform.  I tend to try and build everything off the ground to minimize destruction from the zeds, but it's far from pretty.

 
I used to start out on the roof of the biggest building I could find, so that the hordes were no issue (-cheesing it). Once I had some gear etc I would build my own. Back in the day with big lakes (and infinite maps, remember that?) I would make lake houses on stilts and no hordes would spawn (I seem to like cheesing it).

 Nowadays I just build a stilt base from the start, as the hordes are way easier early game. Slap some spikes down under it and a ramp you can just pick them off. Once I got the failproof horde-base set up I will just build a big build somewhere close by. Dont really need defenses on that, other than a lost Z or Zdog running around.

 
In 9 out of 10 of my savegames I have started to build my own base from scratch on day 1 so that's what I usually do. Even if I end up using a pre-built POI as my base I tend to tear down lots of walls and roofs and rebuild it to my liking so in the end it does not look like a former POI anymore. I am not into having different living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and stuff. My base has to be functional so that might explain why I don't find POIs as my base interesting.

 
I have built an early day base near the trader for efficiency before but sometimes that gets boring.  Nothing special, usually an elevated platform or whatever pops in my head at the moment.

Recently I have been trying to take over existing POIs and upgrading choke points throughout as fall back positions assuming I may use it as a horde base at some point.

I feel this adds alot of variety as every POI has strengths and weaknesses to account for which makes each playthrough different.

 
In 9 out of 10 of my savegames I have started to build my own base from scratch on day 1 so that's what I usually do. Even if I end up using a pre-built POI as my base I tend to tear down lots of walls and roofs and rebuild it to my liking so in the end it does not look like a former POI anymore. I am not into having different living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and stuff. My base has to be functional so that might explain why I don't find POIs as my base interesting.
   I tend to take a section of whatever building I use for My base as the Utility Area,   crafting and storage all well-spelled out and functional.  But then,  for My own tastes and also the People I normally play together with also enjoy 'staking out' a section of the POI as if its their own personal space,  and it winds up bringing a smile as you march through the base.  One Man loves the 'Western look"  so he decorates with lots of semi-smooth wood panels and lots of brown leather sofa pieces.  then you walk into the area that one of the women that plays in My World,  and she likes marble floors and turning her space into a luxury apartment with lots of potted plants, then My space leans toward using wallpaper and wainscotting, usually if the space has a bed already in it,  then My bedroll hover-lays on top of the bed  (really wish those bedrolls could lay flat on the ugly beds though).  Our 4th Player likes being "out" a lot,  so their space winds up having 3-4 secured chest attached to the ceiling,  and storage for extra weapons.  Foot lockers against the walls,  and munition boxes high up on side walls,  and usually an extra forge.   I enjoy seeing the mish-mash though as everyones personality of how they "roleplay"  into the post-apocalypse theme of the game.   

 
Thank you for starting this thread, Sjustus548.  Nice topic.

I am kind of like Tohskrad (not very creative) and Laz Man (efficiency).  It's usually a 7x15 elevated box near a traders and some open farmland.  I can build very quickly and it's as small as possible so I can do almost anything without moving very much (and using QuickStack mod to dump into all containers at once - when I am not doing a bug test run) and yet large enough to have a gyrocopter pad on top.  I have a zombie 'perch' and a carport right next to it.  I usually use until I 'clear' a city, and then move to another city.  Which I haven't done yet in 9 A20 run throughs cuz the dang cities are so awesome now.  (yep, they need work, but they are still awesome.)  I don't use POI's cuz I kind of have an OCD thing about fixing things.  When I say clear - I don't just mean get rid of z's, I mean remove all rubbish and fix up broken walls and floors, etc.  I do that as my avatar is hoping to flip things for other survivors, and I do it for myself to learn more about the POI's and how they are built.  (and that includes using the POI editor as well.)  That's most of the time.  Every so often (~10th run through) I try doing the nomad style and use poi's - but never the same one more than once.

 
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I generally make a POI with a second floor, near a trader, for my initial  base. My current play through, day 7, I'm using a barn. About week four or five, I start building a base from scratch, with mini horde/screamer defense, again near a trader. My first horde night I'm using a POI, but by the second week, I have the beginnings of one of my horde tower designs. With A20's loot system, I'm build the tower in a higher biome for the better loot. 

 
Do you build a base or transform a POI?
Both!  I love this game as you can do either and have fun doing so.  :)

Just learning 7d2d and using POIs is definitely easier to start with as grinding for resources can take a while for good bases you make on your own.

 
If I'm in solo play, I'll take a nearby house and bust out the walls connected to doors so I can implement a melee feature without zeds getting through. Then I'll work on a second floor perch for explosives and clear out the area up top for storage. Then it's traditional gameplay and clearing hordes.

For multiplayer, I build a cube on stilts with a ramp leading to the door so zombies path to our area where we kill them. I'll then put pillars 2 blocks away on both sides of the ramp so that I can hook up fence posts, and maybe a blade trap. We use that as a base and starting horde base.

Taking over a POI is always much more difficult than just building your own since you have to learn the POI and the paths zeds with take. With your own, you design it exactly how you want it to work. I've never had a failed design of pathing unless demolishers get invited to the party, or unless the AI decides to do it's random thing of hitting walls when I'm clearly standing BEHIND the zombie punching it.

 
Largely depends on my spawn location and if playing with a group.  If solo, I'll usually just take a POI and convert/reinforce it.   If I do make a custom base, it's usually mostly for the XP, as I'm not a very creative builder.  My personal bases are very blocky (cubes) with a large platform for farming/gyro landing platform.  I tend to try and build everything off the ground to minimize destruction from the zeds, but it's far from pretty.
i build the sane way blocky and cubey easy and no brain cells required XD built different once took me 6 in game days to build my base

 
Once out of the first few days, found bases are not needed. I just setup many storage containers near by to traders. Plop down a forge, workbench, etc..

Really no need for  base at all except role playing reasons. 

Sadly, wish there was a reason for "living bases" such as raiding bandits and/or vindictive zombies that destroy things not defended( such as Green Hell does).

 
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Which is your preferred method of base construction?  Are you someone who goes out and finds a great area and builds your own base or do you find a nice POI and transform it to your needs?  I'm not talking about horde night setups, just your base where you live and store all your stuff.  I used to be the kind of player that would build my own base but in the past few alpha builds I've started just taking over an already built POI.  This world I started with the goal to go back to building my own base again.  While we were clearing out our first town for supplies I just threw some storage boxes on top of a house beside the trader so as not to get too settled in.  Little did I know that was enough for me to keep putting off building my base.  Now I'm on day 28, 2hr days, and realized that I hadn't started on my house yet.  So I'm going to change that and I spent the past few hours picking out a great location.  I'm going to build an ocean front house and it's going to be magnificent, or at least I hope it will lol.  Seeing some of the amazing POIs the game has now has inspired me to work harder on making my place look better than a wooden cube that it used to be lol.  


Poi, somewhere nearish to the trader, preferably with a working VM and a flatish roof.    Im here for looting, killing zombies, and mining.   What building I do is strictly for the horde base and as for the POI I live in, I MIGHT paint it a bit (not never completely overhaul).   

I will however make storage boxes and paint THOSE since I would much rather have pictograms vs a sea of words to try to remember where crap goes as much as possible.   If only we had a few more specific textures(I NEED a refrigerator texture to store my meat and other ingredients in.)  for example, an Oven is where you find "cooked", ie ready to eat foods.   The kitchen cabinet is where you would find CANNED goods that are used to make recipes(single use cans such as miso and chicken stock are ready to eat and belong in the oven since that's grab and go!)   Drinks to into the drink cooler because, well that makes damned sense.     That's kind of the limits of my base building because  I ain't got time for making "pretty" crap

 
I suck at building so I usually just find a POI to store, craft, and mine and then choose another random POI to use on horde night. 

That said, I am trying to get more creative since you can do alot more with the new A20 blocks.  Right now I'm trying to use the same method as above while slowly building a massive base through the side of a mountain (something I've never done). 

Now if only I could stay alive long enough to ever finish it lol-- survival, perma, all feral.

 
Both. We like to build cool places to hang out including painting, furnishing, and decorating them w/ turrets but there are great POIs to base in as well like the apartment on top of Crack a Book or the top of Higashi Tower. Lately though we've been using POIs for Bloodmoon because we're not super into Horde night right now so we'll fortify the old church or a water tower. I'm looking fwd to building the next Horde tower but I've haven't seen a good site yet: looking for a high hill/ cliff to build a tower on. 

 
I start with a POI that i don´t really change much, just take out everything that leads to the second floor and empty one room for some chests and forge/workbench.

Sometime between day 7 and 14 i start building my own from scratch.

Hordebase is always self built and seperate from my normal base.

 
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